Senior ANC leaders are engaged in urgent, secret talks to negotiate an exit for President Jacob Zuma, possibly as early as January. Surprisingly, the talks are being driven by close allies of the president who are trying to negotiate a way for Zuma to leave office without him being embarrassed.

"A few nights ago, I watched the ANC’s new leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, promise us that his party will be more responsive and more accountable to us, and that it will reach out to community organisations and other organs of civil society ... Whether he acknowledges it or not, he knows and we know that means he has to act in the matter of President Zuma," Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said in his Christmas sermon.

The long and the short of the markets

Apple defrauded iPhone users by slowing devices without warning to compensate for poor battery performance, eight lawsuits filed in various federal courts in the week since the company opened up about the year-old software change.